JANUARY 24 (BY WIRELESS) :-- W HENStanthe -ò- Doughnut =_ .. ::J: ( .. Man heard recen y ::t '" F:; that, on a certaIn (& l' - Fre ch island in the ;. J ( l-: PacIfic, doughnuts- French doughnuts, n1ark you, and therefore artistically and hiç;torically unsound-were being sold at forty-eight cents a dozen to Ameri- can troops statIoned there, he was deeply agitated. So was his associate, Stanton '-' L. Griffis, Commissioner of the Ameri- can Red Cross in the Pacific .Lt\rea. The Red Cross has access to an unlimited supply of doughnuts, made on a patent- ed machine at a cost of eight cents a dozen, and distributes the product free to our troops wherever and whenever possible with passionate zeal. As I write this, Griffis and Stan the Doughnut Man are pawing the ground here in theIr eagerness for the signal from the ArnlY or Navy transportation service that will send doughnut machines and trucks, or "clubmobiles," down to the island in question to defeat French ex- ploIters of our soldiers' wealth and put their own cheap and patriotic cruller into circulation. Griffis's anxiety is based, obviously, on pride of organization and on his sense of duty toward the troops. Stan the Doughnut Man, whose legal name is Stanley Anderson, takes a frankly com- mercial view of this matter and all mat- ters involving doughnuts. "I'll lay my cards on the table," he frequently says. "1 wear an Army'uniform and the Red Cross is my channel, but 111)' salary is paid by doughnuts and 111)' job is sel]- ing good will for dough- nuts." I have known Anderson for two years, mostly in variòus Medi- terranean war zones. "'.Then I found hin1 here in the Pacific, about to storm its far- Bung archipelagoes in behalf of troop morale and the Doughnut Cor- poration of America, I was impressed again by the manner in which private enterprise threads its way through the war and the war areas to the very fore- front of battle. This, of course, is a thought \v hich any war corre- spondent or camera- 60 LeTTeR. FR.OM HONOLULU Inan n1ar enjoy simply by contemplating himself, but his mind is not, as a rule, adjusted to thinking in those terms and he prefers to observe phenomena like Stan the Doughnut Man and Charlie the Algiers Leprechaun: The latter, whose memory has been perpetuated by John Stein beck in a newspaper story later included in an anthology of tales of the supernatural, showed up in Al- giers one day in August, 1943, with a shipload or so of whiskey, which he passed around to generals, writers, and other connoisseurs, emphasizing cer- tain brand names. Salesmanship is easy in such circumsta es, and the generals were perfectly willing to glance at the label on the bottle while pouring. Post- war sales figures should show how at- tentively they read. Charlie, whose last name is, very properly, submerged Ü1 the transmission of the legend, said at the time that he was repaid by the society of military and artistic geniuses and, as far as the commercial phase of his errand went, he merely hoped for the best. Stan the Doughnut Man is a more versatile, ad venturous, and, to my mind, effective salesnlan. It's not true, aç; cynics in the Red Cross and .A.rmy have suggested, that he gets a commission on the doughnuts and machines he has in- troduced into the theatres of war. An- derson is paid a fixed salary that is mod- est out of all proportion to the fervor of his campaign. On the Anzio beach- head he worked himself into a nervous breakdown with his community sings, pep talks, and anecdotes,- which many troops, strange to say, came to enjoy as rlluch as the doughnuts and coffee that went with them. His evangelisl11 and possibly also a feeling of frustration-he was rejected by both the Army and the Navy on medical grounds-have taken him into sonle fairly rugged areas, as the Army phrase goes, and he has often lent f10nt-line medics a hand with the wounded. Lieutenant General Mark Clark, who, incidentally, was partial to Anderson's chocolate doughnuts, a special item in his repertory, sent hin1 a letter of thanks and endorsement when he left Italy, and one correspond- ent in that campaign wrote that the troop reaction to visits from Major Gen- eral L ucian Truscott, a very popula r leader, was second only to their reac- tion to the visit of Stan the Doughnut lVlan. Anderson takes himself, his career in doughnuts, and his past and future as a propagandist very seriously. A young man with spectacles, round pink cheeks, and a breathlessly confidential manner, he has a wide background for one of his years, a background especially suited to the overcoming of tough resistance. He began by selling encyclopedias, after be- ing expelled from school in the ninth grade, and his subsequent operations were equally-and consciously-tradi- tional: Indian and other medicine shows, the sale of hair tonic, press-agentry for touring vaudeville troupes. Either An- derson was born nonchalant or he sub- dued personal embarrassment complete- ly during his snake-oil days. The secret of his considerable success with soldiers lies in the fact that he is not sensitive. I've seen drivers of Red Cross dough- '-' nut trucks literally cringe from con- tact with front-line troops, though their reasons for not being in an armed serv- ice were legitimate and their patriotism \vas unquestionably pure. Knowing, or c:;::> c::::=:::' c:::> -- c::::>C) Ó o Z)é? CJoo o c:::> c::> ó 0 c:::' o c:> o C> ð ð R)ô o <" c;::/ o C7 <:/ /L